Post-doctoral Fellow
I am a Kavli Fellow at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) at Stanford University. I completed my PhD at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA), at the University of Toronto.
I am a theoretical astrophysicist with broad interests. I gravitate to problems where fresh ideas and theory-motivated approaches can help us get the most out of our observations. I am excited by unconventional ideas that have the potential to open up new observational landscapes. As a result, my work often exists at the intersection between theory and observation.
My ultimate goal is to be one of those scholars about whom people say "oh Dylan Jow? They've worked on everything."
Compact sources of coherent radiation — such as pulsars, FRBs, and gravitational waves — propagate and scatter in the wave regime of optics. The resulting chromatic interference effects contain un-tapped information which may shed light on a variety of regimes of physical interest: e.g., the interstellar medium and dark matter. I work on systematically characterizing wave effects in different lensing scenarios. See this review on wave optics in astrophysics.
New observational probes are transforming our undestanding of the interstellar medium across a wide-range of scales. I am interested in using scattering and polarimetry of radio sources (e.g. FRBs and pulsars) to probe the plasma structure and magnetic field environments of the ISM on small (AU and below) scales. Resolving the mystery of extreme scattering events in radio sources will shed new light on the ISM at these scales.
The phase information that will be accessible in detections of gravitational lensing of FRBs and gravitational waves may enable new techniques for probing dark matter substructure and making precision cosmology measurements. I am interested in expounding the scientific possibilities for this new lensing paradigm and working on new techniques for detecting lensed FRBs and gravitational waves.
The recent detection of a gravitational wave background at ultra-long wavelengths opens up new scientific possibilites , astrophysical and cosmological. How do we get the most out of this exciting observation technique, especially as we move into the era of single-source detections with next-generation radio telescopes like the SKA.
My work on wave optics has at times led me to study related problems in quantum mechanical scattering. Both fields are related by path integrals and share the numerical and conceptual problems that arise with path integration.
I am a member of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), specifically working on FRB polarization studies as a way of probing astrophysical magnetic fields.